Putin pledges to increase FSB funding, asked to work on elections

On January 31, 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin broadened the role of the Federal Security Service (FSB). At the FSB’s annual board meeting, he instructed the agency to provide security and combat nationalist and extremist ideologies during the upcoming regional and national elections and to protect Russia's economic interests.

Putin told board members, “It is important not only ensure law and order, but also to safeguard society from any attempts at the ideology of extremism, national[ism], and religious intolerance percolating into the public and political arena. Elections are a very important democratic instrument for forming the state authorities, authorities, which are responsible and elected as a result of a sound political competition,” cautioning that the FSB “should work strictly within the legal framework, and any of your actions should be based on the Constitution and Russian laws” (Itar-Tass, January 31).

Putin told the FSB board that in 2007 salaries for career officers would increase by nearly 25%, a raise more than double Russia’s average annual salary increase. The largesse follows a similar increase in 2006, when Putin’s government gave the FSB an additional 27% in direct added revenue.

Agentura.Ru March 2011